In modern clinical settings, there is often an electronic record, e.g., an electronic medical record, associated with each patient presenting at a hospital or clinic. Some electronic records, for instance, an electronic medical record generated by Cerner Millennium available from Cerner Corporation of Kansas City, Mo., have a plurality of sections wherein information regarding various aspects of a patient's visit, as well as historical information and the like, may be input and retrieved. One such section that may be present is a task list. As used herein, the term “task list” refers to a list of reminders or “tasks” for use by a clinician or other care giver indicating that something was, or is, to be done for a particular patient and what was, or is, to be done. That is, “tasks” are reminders to the clinician that, for instance, a medication was, or is, to be given, a vital sign was, or is, to be checked, data was, or is, to be collected, a procedure was, or is, to be performed, or the like. Tasks generally have a time associated therewith which may be a particular instance in time or may indicate that the task is continuous, e.g., an IV medication administered over a period of several hours, and specify only an initiation time and/or a monitoring time. Alternatively, if desired, a time associated with a task may indicate that a task is to be performed only as needed (i.e., PRN).
Tasks are typically generated from orders and specify, with particularity, what is to be done for a patient. Thus, if an order states that a patient is to receive four 20 mg doses of medication X, one dose every three hours beginning at 12:00 pm, four tasks may be generated on the task list associated with the patient: a first task at 12:00 pm, a second task at 3:00 pm, a third task at 6:00 pm, and a fourth task at 9:00 pm, each task indicating that 20 mg of medication X are to be administered.
Another section of an electronic record associated with a particular patient that may be present is an action item documentation view. Such a view, for instance, the “Interactive View” of an electronic medical record generated by Cerner Millennium, provides one or more input fields wherein a clinician or other authorized care giver may input information regarding items for which action is taken. Action items may include, by way of example only, those items for which one or more properties may be documented in an electronic record associated with the patient, for instance, vital signs, medication administration, data collection, and the like.
Typically, once a clinician (or other care giver) has completed an action item and documented any pertinent information in relation thereto in an action item documentation view, he or she must separately access the task list and determine whether the action taken satisfies the completion criteria for any tasks on the task list. That is, if administration of 20 mg of medication X is shown as a task due on the task list at 3:00 pm and the clinician takes such action and documents it in the action item documentation view, he or she must still separately access the task list, determine that administration of medication X at 3:00 pm has been completed, and check off the task as completed. Such duplicated effort is inefficient and time consuming for the care giver.
Accordingly, a method for updating a task list that does not require duplicate documentation of a single action in multiple locations of an electronic record would be desirable. Additionally, a system that permits task lists to remain up-to-date but requires less documentation than prior art systems would be advantageous.